A sprocket[1] or sprocket-wheel[2] is a profiled wheel with tooth, or cogs,[3][4] that mesh with a chain, monitor or other perforated or indented material.[5][6] The name ‘sprocket’ applies generally to any wheel upon which radial projections engage a chain passing over it. It really is distinguished from a gear in that sprockets are never meshed together directly, and differs from a pulley for the reason that sprockets have tooth and pulleys are clean.

Sprockets are found in bicycles, motorcycles, cars, tracked vehicles, and other machinery either to transmit rotary movement between two shafts where gears are unsuitable or even to impart linear motion to a monitor, tape etc. Maybe the most common form of sprocket could be within the bicycle, where the pedal shaft bears a big sprocket-wheel, which drives a chain, which, in turn, drives a little sprocket on the axle of the rear wheel. Early automobiles were also largely powered by sprocket and chain mechanism, a practice mainly copied from bicycles.

Sprockets are of various designs, a maximum of efficiency getting claimed for every by the originator. Sprockets typically do not have a flange. Some sprockets used in mixture with timing belts possess flanges to keep the timing belt centered. Sprockets and chains are also utilized for power transmission from one shaft to another where slippage is not admissible, sprocket chains becoming used instead of belts or ropes and sprocket-wheels rather than pulleys. They can be run at high speed and some types of chain are so constructed concerning be noiseless even at high speed.